Fall Protection Risk Assessment

Ineffective or missing fall protection was OSHA’s most-cited violation in 2015 for the fifth year running and is the leading cause of death in the construction industry.
Who is responsible in a company for doing the fall protection risk assessment to put an end to these accidents, injuries, and deaths? Generally, it’s the safety manager or safety point person. Anyone who is trained in fall arrest and determined to be a competent person by their employer, in fall protection, can also perform the assessment. That being said, it is wise to use references from OSHA CFRs, any documents that specify the questions that should be asked, and the technical data to support the findings of the assessments mitigations.
In my experience I have found that simple solutions to high-risk hazards can be devised by taking time to consider all of the existing hazards and then using the elimination process to remove and mitigate those hazards.
It is important to consider not only the exposure to fall hazards in our assessment but also the forces in and around the work area that could also cause a fall. Consider something as simple as working on an electrical outlet on the ceiling while standing on a ladder. Is it possible that the electric shock could knock you off that ladder? Of course it is; this is just one example of the hazards we need to observe and recognize and mitigate to keep injury or possible death from occurring.
So should we allow any hazard to exist without addressing it and creating a mitigation that will completely or seriously reduce the exposure to the hazard? No. We have OSHA guidelines, ANSI specifications, experience, and knowledge to help us discern and recognize hazards. We must use all of these tools and raise the bar to another. It is all of our jobs to be creative, and go beyond the federal regulations and best practices.
For example: If we know that climbing a ladder to reach a scaffold may cause an employee to fall—be it a slip on a rung, a physical condition of the employee (fatigue, loss of consciousness) or other circumstance—we can easily mitigate these hazards by installing a yoyo or self-retracting lifeline above the ladder and requiring all who climb the ladder to attach their fall protection harness at the ring on the back between the shoulder blades.
This simple and cost-effective solution can be applied and will protect that employee from the moment they step on the first rung of the ladder. This is a great example of going above and beyond the federal regulations that are prescribed. Take this example and apply it to all of your hazard assessments and see how creative you can be with finding new ways to mitigate hazards on your job site.